Word: conly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...greatest con artist. Throughout the narrative, nothing is as it seems. Wychwood's employer is an author who, it turns out, has plagiarized her books. His wife works for an art gallery where the paintings are palpable forgeries. Meanwhile, as the narrative flashes forward and back, parallel lies are occurring in other times and places. Meredith is being deceived; so are those who subscribe to the Chatterton myth...
...does a fine job with these down and outers, though there's a silly tendency to slide into Southern accents for comic effect. The players from the ART's new Institute are also sharp, especially Bernadette Wilson, who plays Jody, a girl who abandons Tucson for a biker-ex-con named Sonny (Michael Balconoff). Unfortunately both the script and the actors, particularly John Bottoms, occasionally lapse into caricature. It's here that the production loses good opportunities to be compelling and truly memorable...
...patients provide Margaret with the excitement which is completely missing from her own life. In an attempt to save one of them, she seeks out Mike, the loan shark who is threatening him. Mike is a slick, charming con man, played with great, seedy elan by Joe Mantegna. He shows her some of the tricks of the con man trade, and for the first time in the movie we see Margaret shed her stiff exterior and smile...
Here the movie loosens up. Margaret starts hanging out with the con men, ostensibly to make them the object of another book. In reality, she's getting illicit kicks out of their scams...
ANOTHER relief is that Mamet does a much better job mimicking the cadences of the criminals' speech. He even begins to write in some jokes. (One of the con men talks about being a member of "the United States of Kiss My Ass.") As in some of his plays, such as American Buffalo and especially Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet is fascinated with the underworld businessman. Mamet's crooks have most of the same qualities of normal nine to fivers. Their business is riskier but it has its own rules and its own drudgery...